Grand Canyon River Trip June 2009

What a fantastic trip. Six nights and seven days on the river. Started off at Lees Ferry AZ. The first rapid was Badger rapid where we got stuck between two rocks (or a rock and a hard place). The back end of the boat was stuck and we were there for four hours. With 17 people, all the gear, etc. we could have flipped. The captain got on her emergency telephone and they were going to send a rescue helicopter to get us out one by one. Before that, two rangers arrived in their boats. The water was coming over into the boat. I wasn't too upset as I have lived with cancer for ten years. The rangers were telling us if we fell in they would send ropes to get us out. We shoved and shook the boat and finally got out and went on our way. The rest of the trip was too exciting to go into detail. Give me a call if you want a full story!

Walnut Canyon

Today is Father's Day and Owen is off on his week long river rafting trip. Look for his blog post next week with pictures. After dropping him off at the pick up point, I proceeded to Walnut Canyon (www.nps.gov/Waca) where I took two hikes! Admission to all national parks during the third weekend in June, July and August is free to encourage more people to check out the national parks.

Colorado River Trip

Keep your eyes open as Owen is going on a week long rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. He leaves on Sunday morning, returning next Saturday night. Perhaps we'll have some pictures to post the week of June 29.

Flag Day

June 14 is Flag Day. Owen hangs flags most days; but today he hung one of each. The mayor spoke about him hanging flags at a Flag Day ceremony on Friday. The top flag should always be the U.S. flag, next the state flag and military flags even have an order on how to hang. For more information on Flag Day you can check out www.USFlag.org/history/flagday.

National Conference on Tobacco or Health

I was in Phoenix for several days at the national conference. I co-presented a poster on our KISS (Keep it sexy and smokefree) program for 16-29 year olds. Went well. Feet are sore! Picture of St Mary's Basilica across from conference center with Sheraton (where we stayed) in background.

California Here We Come - Again!

Left Nevada and arrived in Marina Del Rey CA at the Marina International Hotel (http://www.pacificahotels.com/). Since the Shiek sold it there have been changes. The restaurant no longer has mushroom burgers and the great Greek salad. Palm trees and water are the view from our balcony.

We visited Griffith Observatory (http://www.griffithobservatory.org/) on Friday, June 5. This is where Rebel Without A Cause was filmed. Here's a picture of the observatory and one of me in front of the James Dean statue. Leonard Nemoy (Spock from Star Trek) and his wife donates lots of money to the observatory and has a theatre named after him. He narrates a film about how the observatory was built. Quite interesting! Property around the observatory includes lots of trails and the famous Hollywood sign.

Owen took time out to phone his two sisters in New Jersey. That's him talking on the phone. Took a walk along the beach and saw a family of five dolphins swimming in the ocean. Water temperature was 62 degrees!

On the way to California

Took off early Wednesday afternoon (6/3/09) heading west to Laughlin NV. We stayed on the 25th floor of the River Palms Hotel (http://www.river-palms.com/). We hadn't been in Laughlin for several years and there were many changes. As the sun was fading and it was 90 degrees we took a two mile walk along the river. Here's a picture of Owen begging me not to go on HaHa!